1. it was a lot harder than i thought. mostly because my husband did not really support this challenge. so on friday nights, instead of being creative about going out and doing something, he just complained that we "didn't go out anymore," by which he meant we didn't go out to eat anymore. basically, he was a pain in the ass. but the other reason why it was more challenging than i thought was because i love to cook complicated things, and sometimes when i came home from work, i didn't want to cook complicated things. we were often eating at 8pm due to my challenge.
2. i couldn't really do it. by this, i mean that there were a couple of times when i actually had to eat out. i will explain them here--a) i did a lunch time talk for lee's company for an academic group that some people are trying to get off the ground. they wanted someone to come in and talk about university and/or research libraries and their needs and trends. the crux of this presentation was that they took me out for a nice lunch. i couldn't exactly avoid that. b) i went to maine for a day to see lee's parents. when we do this we meet in portland, not at their house because their house is too far for a day-trip. they took us out to lunch and dinner during that day. again, no choice unless i wanted to carry a cooler around. there is only so much food that you can pack and it's not really suitable to do so for full meals. c) at the end of march, i went to visit my family in ohio and again went out once for a nice dinner with my sisters. my parents also don't cook much, so i did all of the cooking for family meals except on our last day when they ordered us pizza, from an awesome place that had gluten free pizza, gluten free fried chicken, and gluten free jojos! i love jojos! (the entry says that the term originated in ohio--but is also used elsewhere in the united states for those potato wedges that are fried together with the chicken. interesting....) and the pizza was AMAZING! it's hands down the best gluten free pizza i've had. thank you, altieri's! anyway, i didn't want to be too difficult, so i couldn't complain there either. to them, i am already enough of a problem because i am vegetarian and now gluten free...
in any case, my parents were pretty happy (and so was the rest of the family) when we went to the west side market in cleveland and went to the handmade hungarian sausage place. here we are, buying something like 6 pounds of spicy hungarian meats :) no, i didn't eat them, but smelled, smiled, and remembered, and had a lovely conversation, partly in hungarian. the guy's family came to cleveland in 1956, right after the failed hungarian anti-communist revolution. my family came before his, between the two world wars.
3. i learned a lot. i remembered how much i love cooking as much as i can homemade and i will continue to do this. i already did before, but had been used to buying more convenience food than i used to--part of this was leftover from my georgia days when i was only cooking for myself. so maybe lee will still complain that we don't go out anymore, but i just think he needs to get over it and find something other than eating to do!
Well, congratulations on giving it a go, Ann. I think you set the bar pretty high for yourself, so only having to eat out in those circumstances still seems like a success to me. And, as you said, you learned a lot, so that definitely counts for something!
ReplyDelete